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This sharp, colourful and easy-to-use new site, run by the New Policy Institute, "monitors what is happening to poverty and social exclusion in the UK". It huddles masses of information and statistics (key facts, trends, indicators and graphs) that can shock and humble in equal measure. For example, about half of adults and children living below the low-income threshold are in working households, showing that work itself is no guarantee of escaping poverty. For a site devoted to poverty, it proves to be a very rich resource.

www.crb.org.uk  

Launched in March this year, the Criminal Records Bureau aims to help a wider range of employers make "better informed employment decisions". How informed its decision was to employ private company Capita to run its disclosure service given its well-publicised "early teething problems" is open to question. The site admits that the turnaround is still five to six weeks, as against its service standard of one week (for basic and standard disclosures). The "About the CRB" section makes its own candid disclosure, confessing it was "conceived under Part V of the Police Act of 1997".

www.nhsestates.gov.uk/patient_experience/  

This "better hospital food" website is run by NHS Estates, which "provides support and advice on the procurement, design, operation and maintenance of healthcare buildings and facilities". The NHS spends £500m a year on food, providing a million meals a day. With large helpings from Loyd Grossman, hospital food is "undergoing a revolution". But the dishes in the NHS recipe book (which you can download, I kid you not) are far from revolting: I enjoyed the "serves 100" captions, but photographs of Grossman might put some off their food.